In Santana’s seven-year run, he had 110 wins and a 2.87 E.R.A., with a WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) of 1.063. In his first seven years of stardom, Halladay had 113 wins and a 3.19 E.R.A., with a 1.132 WHIP. Santana had more strikeouts, Halladay fewer walks. But their results were essentially the same.
For Santana, though, that was just about all he had. Besides a three-month renaissance in 2012 (including the Mets’ long-awaited first no-hitter), Santana was finished. At his peak, he pitched like a Hall of Famer. But his prime was just too short.
Halladay’s prime lasted just long enough. It was not all thanks to Rivera’s cut fastball, of course. But in those first three seasons after Rivera’s help, Halladay threw the cutter for 40 percent of his pitches — more often than any other starter in baseball. His other favorite pitch, the sinker, moved in the opposite direction. At times, it seemed unfair.
“Toughest on me? Halladay, that sinker and cutter,” Derek Jeter told me last spring. “I tried to just guess which way it’s going to go — and I always guessed wrong.”
Jeter hit .234 in his career against Halladay, whose control was so impeccable that his walk rate in those three years (1.24 per nine innings) was the best in the game. And if he ever lost the feel for the cutter, he knew where to find it: on the ball with Rivera’s grip traced onto it.
“I’d keep it in my locker, and when we’d go on the road, I put it in my travel bag,” Halladay said. “Stuck it in a shoe, wherever I went, and if I was struggling, I’d just pick it up. I carried it the rest of my career.”
Perhaps that ball remains among Halladay’s career possessions. What a poignant artifact it would be for the display case honoring the new inductees in Cooperstown.
The post What Mariano Rivera Shared With Roy Halladay, Besides Hall of Fame Credentials appeared first on Viral Trending Content.
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